Android App Ratings & Reviews

Rackspace Cloud App for Android

As the cloud grows from its infancy into mainstream maturity and popularity, the way that system administrators interact with their cloud servers is due to change as well. No longer is it acceptable to think that IT professionals will be able to sit at their desks all day in order to manage their cloud solutions. Like most other professional positions, the growth of mobility has allowed IT pros to do their jobs from just about anywhere, and for those utilizing Rackspace’s cloud solution, that now includes managing their enterprise cloud servers as well.

The Rackspace App for Android has two major benefits for Rackspace clients. First, there’s mobility. Having complete control over your servers from any location with a signal simply can’t be overstated. If something goes wrong, you don’t have to wait to get back to the office or hope someone else can discover the problem; you can just fix it. Next, there’s ease of use. Sure, most of the functionality could be done through your Android device’s Web browser, but the app’s interface just makes everything seamless and intuitive.

The app lets you manage many aspects of your cloud servers, from the servers themselves to load balancing and even file management. The app lets your reboot servers, rename then, resize them on the fly and even rebuild them. You can also manage your backup schedules for your enterprise cloud, and ping your servers from locations around the world to check network latencies. You can even Bootstrap new servers with Chef, getting them up and running in no time at all. The app also lets you add or delete Cloud Load Balancers, or update them as needed, and add or remove nodes as you see fit.

The Rackspace app gives you a number of tools to manage your content stored on your cloud servers. You can completely control your Content Delivery Network settings, manage your containers, create and store media, like photos and videos, and even print off selected files. Most files will also open using their connected application, saving you time as you won’t have to download and save the file, then find a way to open it.

The app is in its second phase, and it has the polish to show for it. The Rackspace app supports multiple Rackspace accounts at once and can connect to the US and UK Rackspace cloud. It includes detailed error handling so that you can better find what is plaguing your servers and it even lets you view your API rate limit.

There’s no doubt that advances in mobility have changed the way people view the Internet, and applications like the Rackspace Cloud app show that one day offices may be a thing of the past. Such a little app has enormous potential as it allows IT managers to effectively control their cloud solution from just about anywhere in the world. Much like the cloud has allowed IT departments certain freedoms regarding traffic handling and software deployment, this app allows the same freedoms in managing that cloud.